104 MUSICAL EVENTS M ockzng Manon W HILE other big opera compa- nies seek to rediscover dra- matic values in familiar works of the past-sometimes stylishly, sometimes with reckless innovation- the Metropolitan Opera prefers elab- orate, extravagant spectacle. After "La Bohème," "T osca," and "Die Fledermaus," there arrived, last month, an elephantine "Manon"-the first presentation in the new house of Massenet's opera. It is an American edition of J ean- Pierre Ponnelle's "Manon" production for Vienna and Munich. The sets are basically mono- chrome, in his familiar manner. The inn courtyard has many cutout animals -rabbits, chickens, geese, cats, a dog, a pig-as well as a busy crowd. The garret in the Rue Vivienne is enor- mous-it could hold flocks of bohemi- ans-and comes with room service. (There are two little tables: a pleasant tease for the audience while it wonders to which of them Manon will address "Adieu, notre petIte table.") The Cours-la- Reine fête is a very big pro- duction number. A tightrope walker gets a hand from the audience when his traverse of the stage is complete. Manon appears at the top of a tall flight of steps, like some Broadway heroine about to break into the big number. But her "Je marche sur tous les chemins" is then done in rivalry with an eye-catchingly elegant Af- ghan hound downstage; on the first night, the dog, with apparently quizzi- cal reactions to each burst of colora- tura from the soprano, won the com- petition for attention. The gaming room of Act IV has become four thronged gaming rooms, stacked up in two stories, with in front of them a thirty-foot table at the opposite ends of which Des Grieux and Guillot play; all but the principals are dressed in white, with whitened faces; Manon wears an immense black crinoline. The last act plays in a garbage dump below the road to Le Havre, reached by a steep rustic staircase. Opera critics are being chided for simply describing what they see, and not trying to discern a director's deeper purpose. Let me try. Mr. Pon- nelle's aim, it seems, must be to deride and destroy the reputation of "Ma- non" as an opera of accomplishment, charm, and grace. (Even so severe and scornful a critic of Massenet as Martin Cooper owns, in his "French Music," that "Manon" is "something very near a masterpiece.") To this end, he employs caricature (Poussette, J avotte, and Rosette, Manon's three friends, are played as shrill fishwives), freezes, and slow-motion sequences. He dresses Manon so unbecomingly that the don- née of the plot-all men who see her desire her-is ridiculed. Massenet's lighthearted touches are rendered gross: the voluble little chorus of Des Grieux's admirers in Saint-Sulpice- usually an amusing episode-is sung by a swarm of gesticulating harpies. Later in the scene, Manon, on her knees in a great red crinoline, clings to Des Grieux's hand and is dragged across the stage, like a collapsed bell tent, while she sings "N'est-ce plus ma main." (The audience laughed. The director had made his point.) The most famous image of "Manon" is that of Des Grieux in despair over his beloved's body. In Mr. Ponnelle's ver- sion, the hero scrambles up the rickety stairs and scampers off into the wings while the curtain falls on Manon lying there as the latest addition to the gar- bage dump. That "Manon" is trash is some- thing that might be argued in a tren- chant article. But it is curious of the Met to have lavished talent, time, and public money on a four-hour demon- stration of the thesis. There is per haps just this, from the Met's point of view, to be said for the show: since the music and the libretto are treated with con- tempt, since the main points are made visually, it matters hardly at all how the opera is cast. The company culti- vates an audience that doesn't really listen to a score, that is eager to drown the music with its applause for scenic effects and for the entries of well- publicized artists. On the first night, the most effective performer (for any- \ ,t" '\ , '- , : , J. / ,. I t . - f- JI. V - / \. I l' ..' \ .: .,. ..' f.,;, :/ I I I '1 .' II' , . I ,! .:t þ --if . t" \ & '/" , ':; .. \ ra r, I - fC- -'" · I' J I å \ '\ I '\:, ... L A MARCH 2, 1987 one who knew the opera) was the tenor, Denés Gulyás. He was singing the role for the first time and had had no stage or orchestral rehearsal. (He stepped in for an indisposed Neil Shicoff.) He gave an honest, straight- forward, traditional performance-ex- cept for the antics at the end, where he enacted Mr. Ponnelle's quirk instead of following natural instincts and Massenet's clear instruction "Des Grieux gives a heart-rending cry and falls on Manon's body." His voice was often unpleasant to listen to, but there were passages of sweet, unpressured mezza voce ("N ous vivrons à Paris" was one) and passages of rounded, virile climax which suggested that if he were to study with great Des Grieux of the past who made records -Edmond Clément, Giuseppe An- selmi, Tito Schipa-he might become a good contemporary interpreter of the role. Catherine Malfitano, a seasoned Manon and an able performer, sacri- ficed charm, variety, and piquancy to dutiful acquiescence in Mr. Ponnelle's view of the character. The others- Michel Sénécha]'s lively Guillot ex- cepted-varied from passable to poor. Manuel Rosenthal's conducting was unsupple and sometimes noisy. Miss Malfitano sang the gavotte, not the fabliau, and the Cours-Ia- Reine scene ended with the alternative version provided "for theatres that have no ballet troupe." Good textual decisions both. A third was question- able. Although "Manon" is termed an opéra comique, it has (unlike "Car- men") no spoken scenes. But it is fa- mous for a deft use of mélodrame: at some moments of light conversational exchange or extreme emotional ten- sion, a few lines are spoken over mu- sic, not sung. There have always been people who dislike the spoken word on the lyric stage (not unreasonably when the size of the theatre or the actors' inability to speak well may make speech ineffective). So far as I know, no one has yet music ked the spoken climax of "Die Frau ohne Schatten," but Jan Kuchar composed recitatives for "II Flauto Magico" (in 1794), Michael Costa composed recitatives for "Fidelio," Berlioz composed reci- tatives for "Le Freischütz," and Er- nest Guiraud composed recitatives for "Carmen." In performances of "Ma- non" outside France, the spoken lines have often been sung; appropriate notes can easily be drawn from the accompanying music. In 1984, Masse- net's great-granddaughter found a vo- cal score into which the composer